Streaming & Charts

To date, 18 countries – Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, NewZealand, Norway, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA – have integrated audio streaming into their singles charts.Ten of those countries – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK and the US – also usestreaming data in their albums charts. France has plans to launch streams in their singles and albums chart in summer 2016.Since streams present a different metric from downloads, based on multiple listens rather than a single purchase, a conversion ratio to harmonize the two metrics is used. This rate differs from country to country to reflect local dynamics, but national chart bodies are adopting similar methodologies to try to standardise nations’ calculations. Streaming is changing the very nature of the charts where it is incorporated. The turnover of titles has slowed as streaming reflects repeated listens to a track or tracks rather than their one-off purchase.

How is this rate in these 18-19 countries? Singles (better: Tracks) and/or Albums?Is it possible to have a list by countries?

- Paid streaming only- Tracks need to be played for at least 30 seconds- The streaming services Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play Music, Juke, Groove, Napster, Qobuz, Spotify and Tidal are delivering their data to GfK- As Germany has value charts, we can assume that probably 0.0x € will be counted/stream

Additional for Albums

- At least 6 tracks of the album have to be streamed to make streams count for the album- Max. number of tracks counted: 12- The actual streams of the two most played tracks are not counted, but instead the average of the following max. 10 tracks (likewise to the UK)

Spain: JANUARY 9, 2015Spain’s weekly Promusicae singles chart will now be compiled using a combination of data related to physical sales, downloads and audio streaming services. Promusicae says that the IFPI has established a criteria specifically to suit Spain’s market, thus the 250:1 formula. The ratio will be reviewed every six months. The new 100 track-long chart will convert every 250 streaming listens into a download equivalent.It replaces Spain’s separate 50 track-long streaming and download charts, and will be compiled in association with Spanish rights organisation Agedi. Streaming platforms including Spotify, Deezer, Xbox Music and Napster are included in the formula, but YouTube is exempt. The first combined chart was released yesterday.

Special thanks to the charts.org.nz member NxtGeneration contributed the info from Recorded Music New Zealand (RMNZ).

UPDATE ACCORDING TO RMNZ:

Streams now count toward single certifications (not albums) in the same way that they count toward chart positions each week. The conversion ratio for certification is identical to the ratio for chart position, which is 175:1.

A gold single remains 7,500 sales (OR the stream-based equivalent) and 15,000 sales (or equivalent) for platinum. So this means a single would have to be streamed 1,312,500 tunes to theoretically go gold on streaming alone or 2.6 million times for platinum. That scenario is unlikely though. What actually happens, of course, is that songs now go gold or platinum as a result of simultaneous sales and streaming consumption by music fans.

This does tend to mean that singles now reach gold or platinum faster than they once did. It also means that older singles have a greater likelihood of going gold or platinum thanks to recurring streaming play, even after their sales peak has been and gone. This was true to an extent before, because sales can continue to trickle in, but is much more pronounced now due to the effect of consumers’ playlisting habits on streaming platforms.

Thank you Brian05 for posting this interesting, though of course utterly predictable data set. I can't think there is really any doubt that the proliferation of audio streaming eats more and more noticeably into digital download sales, which I think is a crying shame, but there it is. The circumstantial evidence has been building for some years, and now we seem to have fairly conclusive proof from the starkness of the official numbers. As the man says, it's "an inevitable artefact of the transition process", and these days in the virtual online world that process travels at worrying speeds.

This I suppose only goes to support the industry's principle that the two types of consumption needed to be reflected in the mainstream national charts, and although that was always going to be an awkward and irreconcileable juxtaposition for many of us, the idea that there could've been two competing tabulations and no combined effort for an indefinite period does seem rather anachronistsic. Although by 2020 I'm guessing that the singles chart at least will essentially be a streaming list anyway, with digital sales contributing little more than what physical sales did to the combined digital/physical chart of 2005-'14.

Music WeekAmazon’s new streaming service, Amazon Music Unlimited, is now available in the UK, having been rolled out in the US last month.

With its new launch, Amazon is looking to go head-to-head with the likes of Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal in the streaming market, boasting a catalogue of over 40 million songs and, most interestingly, a potentially game-changing price point.

While Apple Music and Tidal have looked to exclusive releases and content to chip away at Spotify’s market dominance, neither have been able to break away from the industry-standard £9.99 per month subscription fee. With Amazon Music Unlimited, Amazon Prime members will be able to sign up to the service for just £7.99 per month, while those content with listening to music in the home can enjoy the service through an Amazon Echo speaker for just £3.99 per month.

Another key feature of Amazon Music Unlimited is Alexa – its voice control function that allows customer with an Echo speaker to control everything from song selection, volume control, playlists and a whole host more by simply talking to the speaker.

Users can ask Alexa to identify a song by saying some of its lyrics out loud, while, if you’re looking for music of a particular mood, you can ask, Alexa, play ‘90s indie, and it’ll immediately play a popular song from the genre and period stated. You can even order taxis and takeaways using the service.

With Alexa, customers can also listen to the Side By Side feature, whereby asking, for example, Alexa, play Sting Side By Side, Sting will then offer a commentary either his latest album/single. Side By Sides are currently available from Emeli Sandé, The Chainsmokers, Sting, Two Door Cinema Club, Madness, Norah Jones, The Shires and Michael Buble, with more being added.

“We’ve been thrilled with customer reaction to the launch of Amazon Music Unlimited in the US last month and we’re excited to quickly bring the service to customers in the UK,” said Steve Boom, VP Amazon Music. “Starting today, Amazon Music Unlimited offers our UK customers playlists and stations curated by our music experts in the UK, featuring leading British and international artists – we think customers are going to love it.”

“Amazon Music Unlimited brings real value to the millions of people in the UK who are already Prime members, with a choice of subscribing for only £7.99 a month or even £79 per year,” added Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “And if you want a sense of the future of voice-controlled music, go ahead and ask Alexa for a free Amazon Music Unlimited trial, and play around on your Echo. If you don’t know the name of a song but know a few lyrics, if you want to hear songs from a specific decade, or even if you’re looking for music to match your mood, just ask. Our U.S. customers love Amazon Music Unlimited on Echo, and we think our UK customers will too.”

Amazon have also made it more difficult to download songs. They have also removed the 30 second preview from the chart display

They introduced a new app with a blue logo. The orange one used to allow you to log into the "cloud" where all your purchased music was stored. After purchasing new tracks, and selecting that app, it would update your purchase's to the cloud, and say you have new music. Clicking on it would cause it to download. The blue one allows access, but after purchasing just sits there and doesn't add the new songs. For the last three weeks I have had to click the download option and select save as, to download the new songs. It downloads them as a zipp file that you have to extract. Whereas the other just download them.

I should also point out that download sales are MUCH HIGHER than official figures, since the industry has always covered up the real amount that records sell. If you look at the Real Chart it still has two records that have sold more than two million sales of both physical and download copies. Though sales are slowly coming down, in proportion to the industry figures, when they were registering a third of all sales, the two thirds of the rest still leaves a massive market. Streaming or no streaming. Even though the two thirds are falling. Records can still sell at number one a 100,000 copies. But of course they used to sell 200,000+ That's the real difference.

Album charts new with streaming30.12.2017After streaming has been added to the single-charts since 2014, this will also be the case with the album charts from the first charts-issue 2018.

The three Meistgestreamten tracks of an album are downgraded to the streaming average of the remaining tracks. The streams of the other tracks are counted unchanged. The sum of the streams of the three devaluated top titles and all other tracks of the album is then divided by a factor of 10 (general average number of tracks per album) and added to the downloads and physical sales according to the current admixture factor.

This method strongly adheres to the model of admixture prevailing in Europe, with the difference that only the two Meistgestreamten titles are not taken into account. The Chartskommission has decided to delete the top three titles in order to ensure a clear demarcation to the single charts, where only three titles per Act are normally allowed.